ukraine

Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs suspected of corruption are among hundreds who have acquired EU passports under the “golden visa” program - a bourgeois shortcut to European citizenship in exchange for cash investments, the Guardian reported Sunday.

Prosecutors asked a US court to deny requests made by a Ukrainian oligarch and a Hungarian businessman to have racketeering and other charges against them dropped, calling the men "upper-echelon associates of Russian organized crime."

A special report published Wednesday urges the Ukrainian government to step up its commitment to investigating the July 2016 murder of Pavel Sheremet, a prominent investigative reporter who was killed in Kiev by an improvised explosive device planted under his car.

Between mid-2015 and mid-2016, Privatbank, the largest bank in Ukraine, handed out over US$ 1 billion in loans to firms owned by seven top managers and two subordinates of its owner at the time, Ihor Kolomoisky, according to a copy of its 2016 loan book reviewed by a reporter for OCCRP. Subsequently, in December 2016, the bank was nationalized after the government found that it was severely undercapitalized, threatening the country’s financial system.

Belarusian journalist Pavel Sheremet’s reporting had challenged authorities from Minsk to Moscow and Kyiv. In a murder that shocked the world, he was killed by a car bomb in the Ukrainian capital in July 2016.

Ukrainian authorities detained an ex-MP and a state energy firm deputy chief for the embezzlement of US$ 17.3 million from selling uranium concentrate at inflated prices, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) saidFriday.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Monday signed into law controversial amendments to legislation that will require anti-corruption NGOs, journalists and activists to publicly declare their income and assets.

A Ukrainian lawmakeraccused Monday Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, of trying to hide and launder a US$750,000 consultancy payment he received from the disgraced former president Viktor Yanukovych.

A Kiyv court began hearing motions Monday on a US$ 75 million embezzlement case involving Ukraine’s top tax official who spent the night on a stretcher in the courtroom because prosecutors thought he faked a heart attack.

A secretive VIP jet charter business that may have helped officials flee Ukraine as the government of Viktor Yanukovych collapsed appears closely linked to the business empire of current Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.

Business Airlines flew Liliia Kononenko, right, and fellow members of Ukraine’s national 10-pin bowling team to tournaments. Kononenko’s husband is a business partner of President Petro Poroshenko.